Teri Lynn Hatcher (born December 8, 1964) is an Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe Award-winning American actress and author. She gained attention for her role as Lois Lane in the television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman co-starring with Dean Cain. Hatcher is also well-known for portraying Susan Mayer, in Desperate Housewives, an accident-prone divorcee. She is also a "Bond Girl", having played Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997.

Hatcher was born in Palo Alto, California, the daughter of Esther (Beshur), a computer programmer, and Owen W. Hatcher, a nuclear physicist. She grew up in Sunnyvale, California. An only child, she attended Mango Junior High (now Sunnyvale Middle School), Fremont High School in Sunnyvale and De Anza College in Cupertino.

In March 2006, Hatcher revealed to Vanity Fair that she was sexually abused from the age of five by Richard Hayes Stone, an uncle by marriage who was later divorced by Hatcher's aunt. Her parents, she said, were unaware of the abuse at the time. In 2002, she assisted Santa Clara County prosecutors in indicting Stone for a more recent molestation that led his female victim to commit suicide at the age of 14. Stone pleaded guilty to four counts of child molestation and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In an interview appearing in Vanity Fair, Hatcher said she told the prosecutors about her own abuse because she was haunted by thoughts of the 14-year-old girl who shot herself, and feared Stone might escape conviction.

Hatcher began her performing career as a young girl taking ballet lessons at the San Juan Girls' Ballet Studio in downtown Los Altos,California. She later studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater. One of her early jobs (in 1984) was as a cheerleader with the San Francisco 49ers. During this time she also appeared as one of the mermaids on the show The Love Boat in its final season.Teri Hatcher with her Lois & Clark co-star Dean Cain rehearsing for the 45th Emmy Awards, September 19, 1993

She also had a guest appearance in an episode of Seinfeld, in which her character, Sidra, broke up with Jerry because she found out Jerry was trying to have Elaine surreptitiously determine whether Sidra had breast implants. In one of the more memorable lines in the show, she declared, "Oh, and by the way: they're real, and they're spectacular." Hatcher has also appeared in a series of popular Radio Shack television commercials alongside NFL Hall of Famer Howie Long. The pair remain close friends, and together have bought farm land on the outside of Los Angeles, with the intent of eventually raising endangered species. Hatcher said her plan to do so came about after reading an article featuring the world's top 25 endangered species.

She hosted Saturday Night Live in 1996. Hatcher beat out four other actresses for the lead role on ABC's Desperate Housewives, on which she stars as single mother Susan Mayer, a role for which she won the Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Golden Globe Award in January 2005. In 2005, Hatcher also won the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award in the same category. In July 2005, she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Comedy Series for the same role, along with co-stars Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman, who won the award.

As of April 2006, Hatcher is one of the highest paid television actresses in the United States. She reportedly earns $285,000 per episode ofDesperate Housewives . In May 2006, she released her first book, Burnt Toast: And Other Philosophies of Life. In conjunction with the book, she has also launched a line of apparel and merchandise. Furthermore she is prominently featured in an international campaign for Repeat Cashmere.

In June 2007 Hatcher appeared on the Paul O'Grady show where she revealed that she writes a column in FHM.